Thomas Peters is believed to have been born around 1738 to a Yoruba family in what is now Nigeria, and was among the many West Africans captured and forcibly transported into slavery in North America, where he was enslaved in North Carolina.
When the British offered freedom to enslaved people who fled their Patriot enslavers during the American Revolutionary War, Peters escaped and joined the Black Pioneers, the only unit of free Black men that fought for the British, serving as a sergeant.
After the war Peters was resettled in Nova Scotia with thousands of other Black Loyalists, but faced broken promises of land grants and provisions, and became a leading spokesperson for roughly 200 Black Loyalist families frustrated with their treatment.
In 1790 Peters travelled to London to petition the British government directly for justice, land, and racial equality, and while there learned of the Sierra Leone Company's plan to establish a settlement in West Africa for formerly enslaved people of African descent.
Peters helped negotiate the terms of the resettlement and recruited nearly 1,200 Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia to join the migration; on 15 January 1792 they sailed for Sierra Leone, founding Freetown, though Peters died there just months after arrival.
- Served as a sergeant in the Black Pioneers, the only free Black unit fighting for Britain in the American Revolution
- Led the petition of Black Loyalists to the British government in London, 1790
- Negotiated the terms of the Sierra Leone Company's resettlement scheme
- Recruited and led nearly 1,200 Black Loyalists on the 1792 migration to Sierra Leone
- Honoured as one of the founding fathers of the nation of Sierra Leone
- Persistence in petitioning power can eventually force change. Peters's journey to London and direct appeal to the British government secured the resettlement scheme that founded Freetown.
- Founding something new can be safer than fighting for justice within an old system. Rather than continue battling broken promises in Nova Scotia, Peters chose to build an entirely new settlement in Africa.